Damen, AkzoNobel Collaborate in Volvo Ocean Race

Damen Shipyards Group has announced its partnership with team AkzoNobel in the Volvo Ocean Race.

The Dutch shipbuilding company has provided onshore workshop containers that act as mobile technical operations areas for the team’s supporting shore crews, enabling the team to achieve its aims. In this respect, the partnership was a natural choice for Damen that parallels the way in which the group works with its clients.

The Volvo Ocean Race is a gruelling round-the-world yacht race, held every three years. The 2017-18 edition started in Alicante, Spain on 22 October 2017. The course circumnavigates the world, crossing four oceans as the distance tally reaches more than 80,000 kilometres before finishing in The Hague, the Netherlands in June 2018.

A new name in the world of ocean yacht racing, team AkzoNobel is a Dutch team, skippered by double America’s Cup winner Simeon Tienpont. The team’s principal sponsor, AkzoNobel, is a leading global paints and performance coatings company and major producer of speciality chemicals, supplying essential ingredients, protection and colour to industries and consumers worldwide.

Ambitions of victory

For the 2017-18 edition, Damen has supplied two workshop containers to team AkzoNobel. These will ‘leapfrog’ each other as the race progresses on its 11-leg course around the world, thus ensuring that the team will have workshop facilities available at all times.

“I have worked with workshop containers for other sailing teams in the America’s Cup, but this is something else,” states Bryce Ruthenberg, team AkzoNobel shore crew manager and reserve sailor. “It was new for Damen to outfit us for the Volvo Ocean Race, but they have taken things to a new level. They have been very cooperative and understanding – coming up with lot of professional advice and ideas.”

Around the world
“We will use these Damen containers onshore as an efficient workshop for our team,” he says. “We strive to be 100% both on and off the water. And achieving 100% out of the water is going to help us win on the water. Teaming up with Damen and having a quality like this really fits in with our way of thinking.”

Mr Ruthenberg worked with Damen to coordinate the outfitting and delivery of the containers. “Coming from the yachting industry and seeing such a professional shipyard in production and working as it does is super impressive,” he says.

Supplier network
Damen called on its extensive network of suppliers, normally involved in the company’s shipbuilding operations, to supply the equipment for the two containers. These business partners included the following companies: